The payments were allegedly made between January and August 2017. Donald Trump’s attorney and legal fixer, Michael Cohen, was paid half a million dollars by a company affiliated with a Russian oligarch closely linked to Vladimir Putin, according to extraordinary allegations published on Tuesday. The claim was made in a research document drafted and posted online by Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actor known as Stormy Daniels, who alleged she was paid in 2016 in return for agreeing not to disclose that she had sex with Trump.